Shawn Nagel still competing

Shawn Nagel, Kimball High's most illustrious wrestler of all time, who went onto wrestle for the University of Nebraska on scholarship, is still competing! The young man who now resides in Lincoln after graduating from UNL, has decided he still has a fire to compete on a National Level and has gone into Cross Fit Training, which is running, lifting, and biking.

This past weekend he completed a Spartan Iron Man Race in Breckenridge, Colorado, and finished 16th out of 104, in one of the toughest courses in the nation, due to the hills and altitude. This was his first Spartan race and Shawn by-passed the Open Division, which most beginners start with, and entered the Elite Division, which are for the Pros and Veterans, just to see where he stood. By virtue of his finish, he did alright!

The course is approximately 5.2 miles starting at the base of a ski slope and running the first 2 miles straight up the hill with 20 obstacles throughout, such as running with a 5 gallon bucket full of gravel and rocks for 300 feet, running 100 yards in waist deep mountain water pulling a 95 pound weight on a pulley, a rope climb, and 30 yards of monkey bars at the finish line.

Outside of his personal training, he runs Memorial Stadium with the Husker Wrestling Team each Friday and does circuit training with them once a week. His devotion to training should be of no surprise to those of us who know Shawn. I remember his senior year at Kimball High when he arrived home in Kimball after winning a state wrestling championship in Omaha – he got in his car and headed to Scottsbluff to have a wrestling workout with another top Scottsbluff wrestler after just finishing his high school career. He had to take a call from the Nebraska Coach in his car as he wanted to offer him a scholarship to come wrestle for Nebraska. His next scheduled event he hopes to attend is in Atlanta, Georgia, in October.